


you can use my skin to bury your secrets in

by zauberer_sirin



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Coulson is an unreliable narrator, Dom/sub Undertones, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Hand Jobs, Light Bondage, Massage, Orgasm Delay, Romance, Smut, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-07
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2018-02-20 06:33:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2418572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zauberer_sirin/pseuds/zauberer_sirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson needs to loosen up or he will lose himself to the alien symbols. Skye offers to help, but her approach is far from orthodox.</p><p>(Post- 2x02 "Heavy Is The Head" smut)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He hadn't taken Skye's suggestion seriously at first but somehow – he's not sure how exactly – it all ends up with him sitting on his bed, dressed in his usual suit (shoes kicked off, the only concession), throwing his head back and pressing it against the wall as Skye slowly and methodically jerks him off.

No, he doesn't have a clear idea of what happened to facilitate this. Just that after he told Skye the story, the whole mess, he didn't feel like arguing with any of her decisions. She knows better, anyway. She has always known better. 

Everything else has failed so far.

And he is tired, so tired. The possible repercussions of getting into a pseudo-sexual situation with a subordinate can't be worse than the itching underneath his skin, the noise in his head, the ache in his bones, like he was burning from the inside out, starting with the tender parts. 

This can't be worse than that. It is better. Maybe it's the distraction, but a bit of the pressure in his ribcage seeps away when Skye twists her hand like that. It hadn't occurred to him that this might help, something like this, but god it has been a long time since anyone has touched him like this. He just never thought it might turn out to be Skye.

"How did it feel? To finally tell me the truth after so many months?"

Skye's voice sounds strange between the walls of his room, out of context, removed. She's never been down here before. He does wonder why she insisted that he kept his suit on, didn't even let him loosen his tie, like she knew something he didn't.

He thinks back on their scene in the office, when he told her about writing the symbols, when he showed her all the photographs. He must admit a weight had been lifted from him, despite her anger. Her anger was part of it, because he deserved it and finally facing it had felt just.

"It felt... liberating. It felt _good_."

A bit like this, he thinks. Which is a strange idea.

Skye squeezes his shoulder gently.

"You're so tense," she says.

"Well, yeah."

She slows the pace down to long, lazy strokes as they talk.

"Is it always like this?"

"No," he replies. It's normally much worse, but he doesn't say that. "It hasn't been two weeks since last time so no, this is okay. I'm fine."

He has said these words over and over to Skye in the last couple of days. I'm fine, I'm okay. More lies, of course. He's always lying to her for the same reason.

Right now he can feel the wheels turning in her head. Skye's an obsessive problem solver, even about this. She is masturbating her middle-aged boss because she can't leave anything alone, not if she thinks it's in her power to help. The surprising aspect is that he is going along with it. Maybe he's that desperate.

"Why are you doing this?" he asks, even though he knows the answer.

"Why do you think?"

"I don't want to be presumptuous."

"Coulson, I have my hand around your dick. This is a good time to be presumptuous."

He makes a weird noise as he swallows.

"Can you–?"

Her eyes are so big. "What?"

"Nothing."

"Come on, tell me. This is what this is about, right? Telling me stuff."

He nods. He has no idea why this is so important to him.

"Could you – _Phil_ , could you call me Phil in here?"

"Okay, Phil," she says, giving him a tiny reassuring smile. "I'm doing this because I want to help you. That was the deal. You let me in and I'd help you be less stressed."

"I have to say: this goes above and beyond the duty of a SHIELD agent."

She laughs at that, squeezing her fingers in the process. It's blindingly beautiful, both things, and Coulson has this horrible idea that he might want to kiss her. But Skye hasn't offered. Skye hasn't offered to do anything other than _help_ , and this is her way of helping. It doesn't mean she could want him. It doesn't mean he wants her either. 

"You are losing momentum here, sir," she says, shifting on the bed for a better position, pressing her knee against his hip. And she's right – he can feel the simple, almost impersonal pleasure under her hand slip away with all the complications which surround this moment. "You have to let go."

"Easy for you to say."

She scrapes her nail along his length, like a revelation.

"Jesus – Fuck, Skye."

But that seems to do the trick.

He gives into her touch too easily. He should know better, be a better boss, tell her this is inappropriate, dangerous even. He's always been a good soldier, a good man, he's never done anything like this. This is not who he is. This is not who he is and that's the whole point. He doesn't know _what_ he is now. She picks up the pace, letting him roll his hips against the motion. He gets there pathetically quick, when Skye swirls her thumb across the tip of his cock. Another human being touching him like this, of course he's a goner. He's surprised has has lasted this long.

He closes his eyes. He doesn't want to see Skye watching him as he comes. He needs this, she was right. But he doesn't want her to _see_.

 

 

"Better?" she asks, afterwards, once they've awkwardly taken care of the mess and he has slipped into some clean clothes. It's still strange to have her here, in his quarters, stranger even now that they've finished. There's no purpose to it anymore.

"Slightly," he says. "I'm still... I don't know. I don't think anything is going to work, not really."

"We'll just have to keep trying."

"Skye... you don't have to do this. This is..." _Disturbing_? That's the first word that comes into his mind. It's also disturbing how badly he wants more of it, that feeling of release that came right after, despite his protestations that it didn't help.

"You said I would be calling the shots, remember?"

He nods.

"So. A couple of weeks, we try again. I'll figure something out."

Skye's a problem solver and when she smiles at him like that, so encouraging, Coulson feels like he's taking advantage.


	2. Chapter 2

"It's about the things you can't control," she says.

Coulson wonders how tight the knots are, because Skye seemed pretty dexterous about it. The thought itself makes his mouth go dry and his body strain against his clothes, the few remaining, that is. Just feeling Skye tying his hands behind the chair, behind his back, that was almost enough for him. The ritual of it. The counter-ritual to his painful sessions locked in the office. It makes him wonder if she has done this before. He doesn't want to ask, doesn't want to pry, but he finds it exciting, the idea that there are these things he doesn't know about her and could learn. 

Once he's bound she slides her hands along his bare arms.

She made him take off his shirt and undershirt and now he feels too exposed. This was supposed to be about relaxing. Or maybe not. Skye seems to have other ideas. She sits on his lap and Coulson draws a surprised breath when he feels her weight over his thighs.

She runs her hands over his shoulders, his collarbone, a warm but assured touch. Coulson can feel himself growing hard underneath her. He wonders of Skye finds it gross and pathetic. Sure, she jerked him off some weeks ago in this very same room, but that doesn't mean she doesn't think these things about him, that he's horrible and unprofessional for reacting to her so quickly, that maybe he has ulterior motives.

"What is this from?" she asks, pressing one fingertip against the pale, faded scar on his left shoulder. 

It's so old that sometimes even he forgets it's there and visible. Barely visible, you'd have to really pay attention. He doesn't have anyone to ask about his scars these days. "First time I was shot in the line of duty. I was twenty seven."

"Hey, I beat you to it," Skye says.

"Yes."

His thoughts turn dark for a moment, tasting the sweet guilt in the memory of Skye down in that cellar, bleeding to death because of him. But it's not easy to stay there, in that darkness, when Skye is here in his lap, alive and warm and heavy and he finds it more affecting than he ever thought possible.

The strain against his underwear is almost painful. His hips jerk up against her. He tries sex without desire. He tries not desiring her. Because how could he desire her? She's Skye. She's not to be desired. But she moves with him, uses his shoulders for balance as she rolls her hips, trying to give him the friction he needs. He doesn't care how juvenile it is.

Then her dark eyes fix on the large scar on his chest.

"No..." Coulson mutters, like he can make her unsee, like she hasn't been seeing it all this time. He wonders why the hell she let him take off his shirt.

"This wasn't your fault," she says, one hand over his heart, close to the scar but not touching it.

"What?"

"This scar. You didn't do anything wrong."

"I think I did," he replies. Skye tilts her head, doubtful. "Not the dying part. But... I did things to people. They don't go away just because I can't remember."

"So you think you deserve this," she says, hard-edged.

"What?"

"What is happening to you, the episodes. You think you deserve them. Because of what you did."

"No," he says, without any weight or conviction at all.

He shifts his hips, trying to be subtle, but Skye catches the gesture and moves her body in reply, grinding against his erection, going slow. She matches him perfectly and Coulson has to bite down a moan. Skye gives him a disappointed look – he gets it, he's supposed to let go, Skye is supposed to want to hear him moan. Her fingers stop playing with the hair on his chest and she brushes her thumb, her fingernail, across his nipple. This time he gives her what she asked for, a low, pathetic growl, a fleeting but complete loss of control.

Skye smiles at him.

That smile makes Coulson forget why they are here in the first place.

Fevered, mad, he leans in to kiss her.

Skye pulls back, raising one hand to his lips. She shakes her head and Coulson lets out a rather subhuman noise of frustration.

"You feel powerless," she says. He nods, desperate to agree with anything she says, because then maybe she'll let him kiss her. She doesn't. She fixes him a hard stare. "Good. _Feel_ powerless."

She brushes her fingers along the line of his mouth, pausing to press one inside. Coulson parts his lips slightly. She watches him intently as he sucks on her finger, taking it in right up the knuckle. He doesn't know why this is good –he doesn't know what the hell they are doing anymore– but it is good and he forgets about everything else for a moment. Then Skye takes away her hand and he looks at her through glazed eyes, confused. She drops her fingers, wet from his mouth, to his chest and starts drawing the line of his scar very, very slowly. Too slowly.

Coulson doesn't know how he should feel, the definition of what is going through his head and heart right now is not coming easily to him. _Feel_ , he hears Skye's voice in his mind, but it's not that simple. Part of him thought no one would touch his scar like this – Skye is reverential but intense about it, she's _caressing_ his scarred skin, outlining the edges with unsettling focus – and that this part of his life was forever in the past. It's not that this is really intimacy. This has a purpose to it, Skye is doing this for reasons other than desire. It's a different kind of intimacy. But Coulson has been starved, perhaps, and having thought this is not something he would ever experience again, it is easy for him to get lost in it. For a moment the alien symbols don't matter and when Skye rolls her hips, hard, he has no other option but to admit how badly he had wanted to share himself with another human being.

"Skye, I can't –"

He finds himself close to the climax, surprisingly, easily.

"It's okay," she tells him, those hips of hers again and she really is going to make him make a mess out of this.

She holds his head in her hands and rests her mouth against Coulson's forehead, sweetly, as he comes with a strangled sob, panting against her neck.

 

 

Despite it all his favorite part is Skye untying the knots, freeing him and rubbing her fingers against the reddish skin on Coulson's wrists for a while, so gently. He wonders, vaguely, if he should apologize for trying to kiss her. Skye doesn't seem angry or uncomfortable about it, afterwards. It doesn't seem to be an issue.

"Better?" she asks.

"Better than last time."

"Good, that's good."

But there shouldn't be a progression here, she shouldn't have to-

"Skye, these things you're doing... You don't owe me anything."

"This is not about that," she tells him.

"You want to help. I appreciate that. But you don't have to push yourself to be this intimate with me."

She frowns, her nose wrinkles a bit too dramatically because her face is so ridiculously expressive.

"We both have the GH-325. Who knows, tomorrow I could start carving symbols on the wall of my room."

"You–"

She shakes her head. 

"The point is, we already are intimate. This?" she gestures between them. "This is _nothing_."


	3. Chapter 3

"You should know, I don't do so well with massages," he tells her, as she settles on the small of his back and her hands skim across his shoulders, getting ready. "Ever since Tahiti..."

Her body tenses with the instinctive desire to say that it's a magical place. The conditioning will never completely go away. Skye senses his discomfort, rests her hand on his shoulder.

"That won't happen," she says. "You are here, in your room. This is real. This is safe. Think about that."

Safe. Nothing really feels safe anymore. But she's right, he concentrates and this has nothing to do with his "recovery". It's his bunk at night, and it's Skye here, not some stranger, some professional. These are Skye's hands touching him, unknotting his muscles. If he thinks it about it like this it gets better. He forces himself not to be afraid of Tahiti flashbacks and tries to focus on the sensation of those hands, those fingers, running down his back to the base of his spine, and the sensation of Skye sitting over him, pushing his body into the mattress. It's not long before arousal begins to creep in on him, inconvenient and unstoppable. Who was he trying to fool, thinking this was going to be just a massage. They have this process now, he and Skye, and it seems to be working so far, he seems to be finding some comfort in it. He knows it puts their work and their friendship at risk, but his cock doesn't seem to care.

"Nice shoulders, Phil," she comments as her thumbs knead into the tension in them. "Those suits don't do you any justice."

He knows she is trying to keep things light, to distract him from his condition. But the words make him question the whole set-up. He doesn't want this to become about him and Skye. This is about the symbols, and about getting him to properly function as Director without chewing everybody's heads off due to stress. It's about not keeping secrets. It's about letting Skye help.

"Relax," she tells him.

"That's the point, Skye, I can't."

"Okay, okay. But, just try."

She runs her fingers through his hair. It's a bit more intimate than anything they've done before. Even having Skye sitting on his lap and dry-humping him. Somehow this is more serious. It's soothing in a different way. She seems to take her time with it, feeling his scalp under the short hair, scrapping lightly and then pressing her thumb against the spot behind his ear. It's so good and Coulson is nothing more than just a lonely middle-aged man who wants to be touched like this for hours.

Then she skims her hands over his sides, drawing the shape of his ribcage. This is no longer a massage, she's just touching him now. She's so careful and light with it, though. And it's overwhelming. Too delicate. He gets restless, completely hard now, his erection pressed uncomfortably against the covers and demanding an attention he can't give it right now. He tries to shift into a better position.

"Be still."

He lets out a groan, of protests or arousal he's not sure which.

"For a dude who spent thirty years being a company drone you're very bad at following orders. You know?"

"Kettle to pot," he argues.

"Yeah." She sounds delighted by it, makes a little happy sound at the back of her throat. Tiny but really happy. It goes directly to his cock. It should be weird that Skye's joy should be physically exciting but everything about this situation is odd.

She traces one single line along the length of his spine, with her index. He grinds his hips against the mattress, searching for friction. He tries to be subtle about it, but he's not having any success.

"That's fine," Skye tells him. "You can do that if you want."

Not wanting to look too desperate he waits a moment before moving again, thrusting hopelessly into the bed.

Then Skye is leaning down to kiss his neck, and where his neck meets his shoulder. Light kisses at first, then she picks a spot and scrapes her teeth across, sucking and pressing her tongue against the tender skin.

This is not a massage, Coulson thinks, feeling the shape of her body over his.

She finds his hand, buried under the pillow, and entwines her fingers with his. Like touching his hair the gesture is more intimate than the situation requires. 

The feel of her chest pressed against his shoulders, her hot breath on the back of his head, is too much. Then Skye draws her nails along the curve of his hips with her other hand and it really is too much. She moves to one side and presses her smile against Coulson's ear, whispering.

"Give into it. I'm going to make you come just touching you like this."

No, he thinks, she is going to make him come just talking like that. Fuck.

"I never imagined you could be like this," he admits, his voice unfamiliar and dream-like.

"You don't have much imagination." There's something defensive about it. Skye doesn't like people making assumptions about her, trying to shove her into a box. What he meant, though, was this: I never imagined you could be like this _with me_.

"Or maybe I couldn't allow myself to think about it," he says, and it's more than he should admit.

"That has to go."

"What?"

"All that crap about what you can and can't allow yourself."

He nods, pushing his face against the pillow. She knows better. She decides. He'll do whatever.

Skye runs a loving hand down his back and he doesn't know what to do with that gentleness. She's still holding his hand. It's different tonight, her whole approach. He trusts her – she seems to know _him_ better than he knows himself in some aspects. She runs her hand up again, settling between his shoulder-blades.

She bends to press one soft kiss on his upper arm, above his biceps.

Eventually all the little touches, the way Skye seeks out and finds the sensitive spots on his body, pile up and Coulson feels like he is going to drown.

"I need..." he mutters.

Skye plays with the short hair at the back of his head again, her thumb finding the knot of nerves that make his body arch up against her. 

"Come on, that's it," she urges. "Breathe."

Coulson opens his mouth against the fabric of the pillow, muffling his last string of moans as he moves his hips against the mattress, squeezing Skye's hand hard, his orgasm more like the pull of the undertow this time, no air, and all around him, until the muscles of his back –still under Skye's solid touch– turn limp and then soft. When he feels it's over he draws a tentative breath, only to realize that Skye is still laying kisses over his shoulders.

 

 

"Better?"

He gives her a grateful look, without committing to a lie. It hasn't gone away, the pressure inside his lungs and in his head. But it has helped.

"It was nice," he tells her. He's not sure how talk about it, what they are doing here in his room every couple of weeks or so. Skye doesn't get any pleasure out of it and he can't say pleasure is a priority but it's there for him and he doesn't want her to think it's the reason why he's doing it. 

"Nice is good. I can work with nice," Skye says. She has this decided look about her, like this is a task. Not a bad task, she doesn't seem to think that, but a task. "When are you doing the, uh, thing?"

"When I come back from Caracas. Thank you, this is going to make the trip a lot easier."

"No problem. That's the idea," she replies, biting her lip nervously and moving away from the bed to take her jacket and leave.


	4. Chapter 4

He recognizes the sound of a bra unclasping.

"Are you... are you undressing?"

She makes an affimative noise. He can't see her nod through the blindfold, but that's enough.

"Why?"

"Felt like it," she says. "I thought it could be nice for you too."

She is not completely naked, he can feel that when she straddles his waist. He himself is wearing his underwear and his shirt, even though she has left it unbuttoned, no undershirt. But knowing she's there, feeling her touch so close, and not being able to see her... He doesn't know what Skye has in mind tonight. He can feel the warmth of her legs at each side of him, bracketing his body. And yes, of course, he's imagining what she must look like right now, over him, perhaps a frown of concentration like she always has when they are in here together. She must be beautiful naked – he bets she's beautiful.

"Yep. Here I am, naked, and you can't do anything about it."

He knows what she is getting at. And it's not even true. She made him swear he would tell her to stop it if was too much, when she was tying his hands to the headboard. He could stop this any moment he wanted. He doesn't want to.

"Skye."

"There are things you can't do anything about."

"I know."

She rests one hand over his chest.

"No, you don't. Believe me, because I've been through that. Blaming yourself for things you have no control over, feeling that you are weak for not being able to change the situation – it's a shitty way to live, Phil, trust me."

The horrible wisdom in her voice.

She starts running her fingers along his sides, under his shirt. It's amazing what he can feel once he's gotten used to the blindfold – he's done this with people before, with lovers, but that was a long time ago, in another lifetime, literally. He remembers how this goes though, how vibrant the little details become. The roughness on Skye's hands, out of many hours in the shooting range with May. He's missed this, hasn't he. She's changed and he wasn't here to notice.

Details are good: her hands, her scent, her hair tickling against his ribs when she bends down to touch his neck, his arms. The way her breasts press slightly against him, her nipple brushing his stomach, until Coulson has to dig his nails into his palms. Details are good but they _not enough_.

"You are really overdue this time, aren't you?"

She can feel his tension, of course she can. The ritual of writing on the wall, he doesn't want to involve her because it might be dangerous, and Skye accepts that. But there's no fooling her about his state.

"I've been more relaxed lately. I thought I could put it off for longer this time."

"This is not the cure," she says. "We'll find a cure but this is not it. This is just for you. To make you feel better in between. So you don't do anything stupid."

"I've already done stupid things," he confesses, _to her_ , almost in a religious sense.

"Yes, very stupid things."

Something about her voice.

She shifts her weight and then takes herself away, moving beyond the scope of what Coulson can feel on his skin.

Suddenly he's very alone in here, even though he can hear her breath, even though he can tell she's still sitting on the bed. But she's not with him right now. He's been left alone.

The next thing he feels is Skye biting gently on his hip while her hand frees him from under his boxers, her fingers gently pulling him. Then his whole body freezes at the contact of her breath on his hot flesh. She can't be thinking – No. He tries to move away but she already has his cock firmly gripped in her hand.

"You don't have to do that," he tells her in a panic, and for the first time the scarf restraining his hands feels like a problem and he wants to see her face, see that she knows she doesn't have to do this for him. She has done so many things for him already, and it has felt risky and inappropriate but this is a line Coulson is not sure he can stand to see her cross. "This – this is too much. I don't want you to feel like you have to go so far."

"Well," she says, and her voice sounds strange, like she's in another room. "Then it's a good thing you have no control over it."

For a moment nothing happens. He's been left in the dark, bound, with just the grip of her fingers for anchor. And then he feels the little kiss she gives the tip of his cock.

She's mad. He's mad. They are both mad and there's no way this won't end in disaster.

But that's okay because her mouth is so warm and careful when she takes him in. A hint of teeth when she pulls off and Coulson is very happy to finally be going mad, very happy it's her the one tearing him to pieces.

"Feels so good, Skye," he says without any control over it. It goes against the whole pretence that he is doing this to find peace afterwards.

Everything is exacerbated by not being able to see, to move his hands – and god, he wants to see her while she is doing this to him, and he wants to run his fingers through her gorgeous hair and he wouldn't push or pull, he'd be good, he just wants to touch her too. And he realizes they wouldn't be here if he wasn't an ill man, they wouldn't be here if he hadn't started carving strange drawings on the walls, and for a moment the idea is too sad to contemplate.

His breathing becomes more uneven and his heartbeat too loud, pulse pounding in his ears. He's pretty sure he is going to come any moment now but then Skye pulls off him, holding him in place with one hand around his shaft. He lets out a sound of protest contaning no actual words. She just presses her other hand on his chest, trying to get him to settle down.

"I can't," he whimpers. He can't do nothing on his own right now. He needs Skye. He has always needed Skye.

"It's okay to ask for help," she says, allowing a long stroke up the length of his cock. That's no relief, it pushes him closer but not _close enough_. "You are the Director but you can't do everything. Stop trying to do everything on your own."

"I'll stop, I'll stop," he says, almost thrashing under her, whatever to make her move her hand like that again. "I promise."

He's breathing so hard now he's not sure his words are even intelligible at this point. Skye seems to understand – oh god she understands so many things.

"And you have to learn to ask for help from me," she says.

It sounds chastizing. He knows he shouldn't have waited for so long. She's been offering, asking how he felt. She knows he can't come to her with this, she has to offer. She's still a bit pissed off that he let things get so bad this time. It's okay, Coulson wants her anger too.

"Yes, I'll ask for help," he says, not entirely because he needs her to make him come as soon as possible. 

She drops her hand slightly, cupping him instead of stroking. That's... not what he needs right now.

"So. You know. Ask," Skye says.

He wishes he could see her eyes as she says this, it sounds like they must be wonderfully hard and resolved. He nods slightly, not knowing if she sees or acknowledges this, before forming the words.

"Skye... _please_. Let me come."

She does.

 

He sits on the bed, still blindfolded while Skye puts on her clothes, but his hands are free. She pulls the blindfold off, careful not to touch him too much when he's oversensitive, and Coulson gives her a sigh of gratitude once his eyes have adjusted to the light. It's an odd sensation, seeing her face again – he sees Skye every day, at all times, and yet he has the feeling that he has missed her.

"Better?" she asks.

"Considerably."

She sits on the bed with him, touching his hand over the covers for a moment. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to push you like that," she tells him, guilt shining across her face.

"No, no, that was –" What is he supposed to say? That it was spectacular? The best sex he's had in years? Except it wasn't really sex, Skye is just helping out. It wasn't really sex and he still wants to see her naked and touch her and kiss her and he has ruined their whole arrangement. "That was useful."

"Good. Because I was afraid I might have hurt you."

Skye, who seems so confident and in control during their little _sessions_ , changes back into her usual softness, her need to know he's all right. He smiles at her worry. "You didn't hurt me."

That seems to put her at ease.

Coulson knows this is usually when the night is over and she goes back to her room. There is no need to linger. They haven't so far.

"I'm starved," he says, nonetheless. "Want to go down to the commissary and find something to eat?"

Skye grins at him. "I'd like that, yes."


	5. Chapter 5

The next time he doesn't let it go overdue no matter how relaxed he felt after their last session – he listens to her, he really does. But he is hopeless, of course, hopelessly eager as he sits on the bed and watches her pace his room like she owns it.

"What is the plan today?" he asks, trying not to sound impatient.

"No plan."

He arches an eyebrow.

Skye picks up a book from his nighstand, something long and fast-paced he found in the airport at Frankfurt. She's never gone through his things before.

"Okay, a plan," she says. "Take off your jacket and your tie."

Coulson swallows. Skye knows that's the first thing he does when – when he is writing those symbols. He does as she tells him anyway, watching her move through the room and towards him, watching her as a way to push past the bad memories of his ritual.

"Lie down."

It's a surprise when she climbs on the bed with him, lying on her side, very close.

She throws one arm across his chest, pressing her face to his shoulder. She closes her eyes and lets out a big sigh, letting herself just rest there, over his arm, for a moment. Coulson doesn't understand.

"Are you okay?" he asks.

She opens her eyes again, looking at him. Her lips curl but the smile doesn't quite reach her eyes, even though she's nodding at him. He realizes she looks tired, or sad, or both. He wants to touch her hair, or the back of her neck, but he's not sure it's allowed in this context. If they were in his office he might hug her.

"We don't have to do anything tonight," he assures her. Despite other indications he's not a completely horrible person. "We can just leave it, you can go back to your room. I have time."

"I don't want to go back to my room," she tells him. "And you need this. Right?"

Her voice sounds so different, more like she normally sounds out there.

Coulson nods, covering her hands with his.

He does need this, has come to need this, whatever this is.

But the thing is, right now they are just lying in bed together, dressed and somehow holding each other, and though it is very nice and it is _relaxing_ it's also very hard for him to rationalize like the rest of the things they've done between these four walls.

Skye drapes one leg over his, propping herself on her elbow to look at him from above.

She's too close, her face is too close. She's never been this close.

"What's up with the frown?" she asks, drawing the lines on his forehead with her thumb.

"I didn't know I was frowning."

"Something wrong?"

You're too close, he thinks. Instead he just shakes his head.

Skye dips her head and kisses him.

The thrill it gives him is uncomprehensible, and not entirely sexual. They hadn't kissed before. She hadn't kissed him. And she hadn't _let him_ kiss her. It feels extraordinary. He opens his mouth eagerly, inviting her to press on but Skye takes it slow, touching the tip of her tongue to his lip first.

She kisses him like she's adding punctuation to a poem – a comma here, breaking the line here, understanding not every first letter needs to be capitalized. So slow, and yet not frustratingly so. Coulson wraps his fingers around the back of her head, pushing her gently, to deepen the kiss. The skin under his fingertips feels hot and soft. Has he moved to touch her before, like this? Has she let him? Coulson doesn't ask why she is letting him now, he just kisses her back.

It goes for a long time, the longest he remembers doing this since he was young, just kissing someone. Skye cups his chin with her hand, opening his mouth under her so she can explore as much as she wants, lazy kisses licking the roof of his mouth. His own mouth becomes something almost alien to him, softened and pliant. He didn't know it could so sensitive, just his mouth. He doesn't have to do anything, be anywhere in the world but right here, with his eyes closed, enjoying the way Skye kisses every shred of tension away, touching him like he is something very fragile and very precious.

He feels relaxed. This is the answer, finally. He feels brave and weirdly unpreoccupied with the symbols on the wall. He feels all those things he had wanted to feel, when he started looking to loosen up. He feels like that with just this, with his mouth under Skye's.

He realizes what it is: he feels _loved_.

He opens his eyes and grabs Skye by the hair, pulling her away gently.

"Skye," is all he manages to say because he doesn't know how to tell her that he knows, that this is too huge to even contemplate, that he understands everything that has happened between them now, and that he loves her too. "Skye Skye Skye."

It doesn't take long for Skye to get that he has finally realized.

She closes her eyes and her brow creases, mortified. "I'm so sorry, Coulson, I didn't mean –"

He lifts his head to catch her mouth. Skye freezes for a moment – she was the one kissing him, she's so sorry. Her panic subdues under his lips and her hand comes to rest on his chest again, she begins touching him again, reluctantly.

"I didn't know," he says. Because he should have.

Skye tilts her head. "You didn't?"

"I thought you were just – you said you wanted to help."

"And I do. I want to help you. I promised I would. But also..."

She drops her head, resting on his shoulder, embarrassed. Coulson runs a soothing hand along her back.

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

"A girl has her pride, you know," she says.

He tangles one hand in her hair, emotionally devastated by the ridiculous freedom of just being able to touch her. She's right, he probably wouldn't have understood, even if she had told her, when they started this.

"I didn't know," he repeats.

"I thought that maybe I could pass it off as just wanting to help you," she explains. "Which I did, it wasn't a trick to get into your pants, or anything, I swear. But I also loved you, so I knew it was kind of dishonest. And anyway, I didn't know if you would want this to be something more than a release thing."

"You could have asked."

She gives him a sad smile. "I didn't want to make a fool of myself."

He touches his fingers to the back of her hand, drawing a long breath against her insecurity.

"I don't want release, Skye," he tells her. "Not right now. I just want to make love to you."

She grins, coming down for another quick, tender kiss before sitting up on the bed, pulling him up with her.

They undress each other slowly. After everything they've done together Coulson finds it odd that they should get shy about this now. But he hadn't seen her naked, not until now. He was right. She's beautiful. The scars on her stomach, the toned muscles of her thighs, the flush crawling over her chest. He loves it all, he wants to touch it all. He presses a kiss at the top of her thigh. He lets himself do this. He lets himself desire her. How could he not desire her? She's Skye.

"Please," she asks, too overwhelmed by emotion for preliminaries. They'll have time, Coulson decides. And he wants time, he wants _time_ , and health, with her.

"Phil..." she sighs. "I want you."

It sounds so common and uncomplicated. He feels so touched by the simplicity of the request.

All those times she must have wanted him to touch her too, but she didn't ask because this was supposed to be all about him, to help him.

She wraps her legs around his waist and waits for Coulson to decide the moment. He brings his hand between their bodies for a moment, making sure she is ready, and tearing the sound of his own name from her lungs again with his touch. She feels too close to him right now, in many ways. He had thought this part of his life was in the past, done. Maybe he was wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. And Skye has this wonderful expression of contentment when he starts moving inside her.

It is ordinary and it is perfect.

Her eyes never leave his. He kisses her fingertips as she comes underneath him, and threads his hand through her hair when he himself feels near the edge.

He thinks it's when she says his name a third time, that's what finally does it.

 

They are still in bed, too tired to move. Skye has him in her arms, and the heat and the smell of her body is starting to lull Coulson to sleep.

"Better?" she asks him.

"Yeah, much better."

She smiles, he can feel it against his temple. 

He doesn't have to lie for her benefit. Not anymore. He's not cured or anything, but his body feels new, clean, finally able to reach some sort of peace. It hasn't gone away, the humming under his skin, but it's no longer painful and Coulson is no longer frightened by it.

"Tired?" she asks. He mutters some form of agreement, too busy savoring the warmth of being pressed against her breast. "You want to sleep?"

"Do you want to stay?" he asks.

"Are you seriously asking if I want to stay?"

"I don't want to be presumptuous," he says, and watches her laugh under his body.

And he has lost control of this, definitely, he thinks as he laces his fingers with Skye's, resting his head over her heart.

Or, maybe, he never had any control over it to begin with.


End file.
